1971-72 Topps Basketball #210 Byron Beck ROOKIE Basketball card

Price = $ 3.95 EX/MINT to NM/MINT

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Below are some tidbits on baseball and sportscard collecting.
Visit our web site for more info on vintage and current
baseball, football, basketball, hockey, sports and
non-sport cards and card collecting.

Q1: How long have sports cards been around ?

(part 1)
The first baseball trading cards date back to 1869. For many years,
baseball cards were packaged in packs of tobacco as a way to increase sales
the same way that today prizes are packaged in boxes of cereal.
In the 1920's and 1930's, candy and gum companies started packaging baseball
cards in their products as well.

Baseball card production was virtually halted in the early 1940's due to paper
shortages created by World War II. The "Modern Era" of baseball cards began in
1948 when Bowman Gum Inc. offered one card and one piece of gum in a pack for a penny.

The first important football set was the Mayo set featuring college players
in 1984. Other than the 1935 National Chicle set no other key football set was
issued until 1948 when noth Bowman and Leaf produced sets.

The issue below is featured elsewhere on this website:

1959 Fleer Ted Williams

Ted Williams was one of the greatest hitters ever to play the game !
The 'Splendid Splinter' played from 1939-1942 and 1946-1960 all with
the Boston Red Sox. He missed 1943 thru 1945 due to military duty when he
was a pilot during the wars. For his career he hit .344 with 521 home runs.
Ted Williams was one of the biggest stars baseball has ever seen,
and his baseball cards remain very popular and valuable.

Ted's rookie card was in 1950 Bowman and he was exclusive with Bowman from
1950 thru 1954. In 1954 he also allowed Topps to make his cards which
they did from 1954 thru 1958.

In 1959 Fleer signed Ted Williams away from Topps and assumed the star
Ted Williams would be retiring, put out an entire 80-card set of cards
highlighting Ted Williams and illustrating his life both in and out of baseball.
Williams decided late in the fall to resign for another year perhaps
damaging the sets impact. Today these cards remain extremely popular
with most of the cards in teh set still quite affordable.

There is one very rare card in this set, #68 picturing Ted with Bucky Harris.
UNFORTUNATELY Topps had Bucky Harris under exclusive contract and
Fleer had to quickly halt production of this card making it a significant
SHORT PRINT. Only a few made it out to the public. This card is quite rare,
hardly ever seen and a plain old simple checklist making it the perfect
candidate for counterfeiting.
NOTE: This card has been counterfeited in significant quantities
so you should be very, very careful when looking to acquire this card.

Other interesting cards are those that picture Ted with Babe Ruth,
Jimmie Foxx, Sam Snead and Jim Thorpe. In addition, cards of Ted fishing
or with his airplane are also very popular.

1963 Topps Stickers

Another of the interesting Topps Issues of the 1960's !
Topps inserted these Stick-Ons (stickers) in several of series of their 1963
Topps baseball cards. Interestingly, the Stick-On inserts were not mentioned
or advertised on wax pack wrappers in 1963.

The complete 1963 Topps Stick-Ons set is packed with HALL-OF-FAMERS and contains
46 stickers measuring 1-1/4" x 2-3/4". The Stick-Ons come in 2 distinct variations.
They can be found either with instructions printed on the back or the much
scarcer blank-back variation.

The Stick-Ons have with an approx. 3/16" "white" band running left to right
across the mug shot. This band appears to be lighter than the printing above
and below it. Theory is that it is an aging effect caused by the backing strip.